Novel objects elicit greater activation in the basolateral complex of the amygdala of wild rats compared with laboratory rats

Wild animals tend to avoid novel objects that do not elicit clear avoidance behaviors in domesticated animals. We previously found that the basolateral complex of the amygdala (BLA) and dorsal bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (dBNST) were larger in trapped wild rats compared with laboratory rats. Based on these findings, we hypothesized that the BLA and/or dBNST would be differentially activated when wild and laboratory rats showed different avoidance behaviors towards novel objects. In this study, we placed novel objects at one end of the home cage. We measured the time spent in that half of the cage and expressed the data as a percentage of the time spent in that region with no object placement. We found that this percentage was lower in the wild rats compared with the laboratory rats. These behavioral differences were accompanied by increased Fos expression in the BLA, but not in the dBNST, of the wild rats. These results suggest that wild rats show greater BLA activation compared with laboratory rats in response to novel objects. We also found increased Fos expression in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus, ventral BNST, and ventromedial hypothalamus, but not in the central amygdala of wild rats. Taken together, our data represent new information regarding differences in behavioral and neural responses towards novel objects in wild vs. laboratory rats.